Thursday, June 01, 2006

Liberals must come down off our high horses

Dr. Chuck Williams writes a provocative piece today on how elites have taken over the Democrat Party. I do agree, and I furthermore think that the exact same phenomonon has plagued the Republican Party as well. When the halls of Congress become a millionaires club this is the likely outcome.

It took me nearly one-third of my life to come to a simple conclusion: Liberals are elitists.

Now, maybe that's not such a big deal to some, but to me it has become quite bothersome. It's pretty clear to me now that average hard-working Americans, be they red-staters or blue-staters, can smell the stench of elitist, intellectual posturing by so-called liberals and progressives.

One of the reasons why this bothers me is because I fear that it will cause us to continue to lose presidential elections.

The second thing that bothers me is that I may be one of those elitists. After all, I couldn't wait to tell the world that I had earned a Ph.D. I smile a bit on the inside every time my students and/or coworkers refer to me as "Dr. Williams."

I'm not so sure when it became important for people to know that I knew more than they did. What I do know is that it does not serve me well with average folk; this is at the core of the problem for liberals, and, given that we make up the base of the Democratic Party, it's also at the core of why we keep losing presidential elections.

I do think the elitism manifests itself in different ways in either party, but it's there and it is killing this country.

You have folks who think too much, and folks who work very hard to ensure that our candidates are elected. Don't look now, but the nerds are attempting to take over the frat house. The problem with that is, they can't help us win elections. They simply stand around sipping green tea and talking about how great it would be if everyone read Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City. It's no wonder folks have begun to call us effete. We sit around, legs crossed, sporting Birkenstocks, and looking down on people who don't read as much as we do.

And, when you really get down to the nitty-gritty, you realize that somehow we feel that all that carrying on makes us better human beings than everyone else. That our values and morals are better than others. This is what really annoys folks about us.

What I've also realized is that this is a character flaw, and, that this does more to divide America than any of Patrick Buchanan's hate-filled rhetoric. Folks who don't read six national newspapers a day hold as much value and worth to our society as those who do. These folks raise families, work very hard for a living, and spend time thinking about ways to better their quality of life. They know what will serve their best interests, and they know what will not.

If the liberal elite would stop writing and chatting so much about how this country should be, they would learn more about how it is. We need to come out of the library from time to time and actually put our ears to the ground. We will find that the blue-staters are looking for leaders who will represent them, even if they don't have college degrees or sip imported beers.

One of the simplest things we could do to get people involved more in politics would be to get regular, normal people into office. The last thing we need in Washington is another Millionaire, a couple of mechanics or plumbers would go a long way toward returning us to sanity.

People who work with their hands are less likely to worry about who's theory is correct and more likely to worry about results. We've let lawyers and other assorted degreed scum draft our laws almost unhindered.